The New York Times
A 2010 Knight News Challenge winner is using Facebook and WordPress to cover a Marine battalion stationed in southern Afghanistan.
Led by photographer Teru Kuwayama, the “One-Eight Basetrack” project, which was awarded $202,000 by the Knight Foundation, covers the 1st Battalion, Eighth Marines in Helmand province.
Kuwayama, along with Balazs Gardi and Tivadar Domaniczky are embedded with the Marines, and several other team members cover events stateside.
The project’s website runs on WordPress but it is on Facebook that the power of this experimental approach to war coverage is most evident.
When Kuwayama spoke to Michael Kamber earlier this month he recalled wondering who the audience would be for photo coverage of a group of Marines at war:
“You can pinpoint a cluster of people who care. We create a pipeline between 1,000 Marines working in very austere, isolated conditions in southern Afghanistan and connect them to their mothers, their fathers, their wives, their girlfriends, their husbands and their kids.”
The conversation threads on Facebook reveal that connection, as one family member commented recently:
“Seeing a glimpse of our loved ones’ world is a blessing, and so is the support of families here. Basetrack has done a lot to calm my imagination. Thank you!”
